Once In A Blue Moon
by Danko Kaji
Summary: Radiant Garden; a playground for the paranormal and Isa's musings. Isa, Lea. Gift-fic for Razer Athane. /CHAPTER 2/: Isa had a heart that used to feel emotions other than rage, once. Now he no longer cares. Post-KHII.
1. Chapter 1

It's been a long time since I've spoken to my dear friend, _Razer Athane_, and I still think of her often even though I don't give effort to keep in touch. This has been a belated present in the making. :3

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><p><span>Once In A Blue Moon<span>

_~ Isa ~_

Isa doesn't bother to spare time unraveling the truth behind senseless paradoxes, since citizens of Radiant Garden have accepted such phenomenons to be normal. Rising waterfalls, spell-casting scientists, negative feelings taking shape – "What's up with that?" Lea had said once.

So many strange things happen in this paradise, and never of permanent harm; Isa questions whether or not "death" truly exists. He has reached a certain point in his life where he feels curious about a lot of things, yet neglects to care, taking things for granted.

Isa can't remember the last time he thought it strange for a duck to trot the plaza with a cane. Bespectacled and possessing a speech impediment, curtsying to passerby and tipping his fancy top hat all the while. Or that senile old man who looks like a third-rate magician dressed too early for Halloween, waving his wand at occasion and performing parlor tricks too good to be true.

Merlin (a name said "magician" provided to the skeptical teen) loves to bring joy and awe and wonder to children starving for entertainment. Isa watched him once, how he flicked his toy and summoned a bouquet of flowers for a little girl. Eyes of the deep blue sea, hair the shade of a magenta rose, a smile reflecting that of the sun, and childish laughter resembling wind chimes in a spring afternoon.

"My name's Kairi," she had said when Lea acknowledged the girl, before he started stretching her cheeks and pulling her hair to make her cry. When Lea grabbed her hand to drag her away, Isa considered calling one of the guards on patrol to arrest Lea, and deny having any relations to said criminal, until Lea pacified Kairi's sobs and fears with free ice cream. His best friend even had the kindness to buy him one, too, but from the most suspicious ice cream vendor owned by a "Scrooge McDuck" Isa ever saw.

Why have guards to protect a castle and its town when no evildoers walked the streets?

"Hey, hey, we should break into that old man's mansion and bust him for illegal experimentation."

Isa stands corrected; this prepubescent gentleman right here seeks to disrupt the peace, establishing himself as the first famous and only petty criminal to go down in history. However, it falls as his duty to guide his mislead best friend back to the right path, and teach him the difference between right and wrong.

_SMACK!_

"Ow! You hit me in the–."

Isa scoffs, and turns the other cheek. "And why would I want to do something as stupid as that?"

"C'mon. Haven't ya ever thought about it? People have been disappearing lately, plucked one by one off the streets..." Lea pauses to add extra suspense, impatient within seconds when Isa's expression doesn't change. "They say Ansem the Wise is in league with aliens! Aliens! Invaders from outer space! That's why there have been monsters spotted around attacking people. The only way to protect us is to do everything they say. Sounds wicked, huh?"

"That's ridiculous. Who's spreading these half-baked rumors anyway?"

"Me, of course!" Isa palms his forehead. Hard.

"You have too much time on your hands."

"Tch. You kidding? I'm too busy painting the town red _all by myself _without any help from my _sidekick_ to take a single break. Hmph. And I thought you were my friend..." Lea sulks, pouting.

"And I thought you had an ounce of intelligence, but I was wrong. You have negative zero IQ points."

Isa smiles, despite his demeaning tone.

_'Some things never change.'_


	2. Chapter 2

_Originally posted in the Livejournal community FF_Zodiac._

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><p><span>Once In A Blue Moon<span>

_~ Saïx ~_

He remembers that day, rues the days of humanity past, of memories that shouldn't feel painful but they do. He always remembers.

His emotions run deeper than water in the cavity of his chest, in the place where he knows a new heart grows. Xemnas preached lies to the others – that Nobodies possess no hearts, that Nobodies cannot feel – and he didn't care before and he didn't care after the truth. The quest for hearts Organization XIII sought never mattered to him, because no matter how many hearts they collected (or how unique some really were), none of them belonged to him.

But Saïx did care. Slivers of hope dared to believe then, dared to place trust into the words of a pragmatic mad man, but his defeat in the hands of the Keyblade Master destroyed those sentiments. He reached for Kingdom Hearts then, pled with the heart-shaped moon for his heart, only to realize too late he had it all along. Too late to care, by the time hearts new and old fused into one. Something foreign, and unreal, and strong.

Upon awakening whole, "Saïx" fortified the walls Isa once built over his emotions, except they were not his emotions anymore. He never wanted his heart forsaken, never wanted to bargain his identity for power; he only wanted for life to become more interesting. He remembers feelings such as these, irrelevant things.

He never cared for exploring worlds, so long as his home continued to provide security and entertainment. It never occurred to his boyhood mind that to grant such a wish meant summoning change. Not only did Radiant Garden change, did Lea change into some hollow of a man called "Axel," but he himself also changed.

Founded by His Superior, who brought destruction to his world and gave him mockery in place of everything he ever lost. A World That Never Was, a uniform black as the void, a nonexistent organization to pledge to, a number and a new name – _'but not my home, nor my heart.'_

Nowadays he can't bring himself to care.

But if he were still Isa, that would be a lie, because those yellow eyes staring back at him from the window of the Grey Area did not belong to him. And that scar, shaped like an X over his face, spells death for a person who owns nothing. These years on borrowed time – blue hair growing long and wild, teenaged body growing tall and massive, the continuation of collecting experiences beyond mortality – belong to the shell of a monster.

Even the return of his name, the castaway of his number, the memory of Lea once again human and complete and standing at the other side _against him _does not move his heart.

He lost his family, he lost his only friend, lost what it meant to love and trust and believe and hope. He lost his name and slapped it back on without sparing an inkling for sentimentality. He used to be a boy who knew what attachment meant and felt like, but he no longer cared.

Death does exist, in the form of change. And Xehanort changed him.

Radiant Garden rebuilds itself on ruins. Lea chooses to fight for new friendships with Sora (with Roxas, _without me_). That girl, Kairi, she found her heroes; Merlin and Scrooge McDuck still do parlor tricks and sell ice cream; everyone else he had come to know are themselves again.

Everything changed, but not Xehanort. The one constant in his life, the only piece left of the past he once knew as home. He remembers seeing the back of a scientist, walking the streets in his white lab coat and black boots with his unforgettable silver hair and monotone voice, which always drank questions through his undying thirst for knowledge.

They never interacted, only observed each other on occasion, but Isa clings to that remnant of an untainted memory anyway. He doesn't care about becoming a vessel for someone else, doesn't care about the immorality behind such a paradoxical motive, doesn't care about what he might have to lose.

Because his heart belongs to Master Xehanort now.


End file.
